


Got My Teeth In You

by ohyondermemphis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Violence, Domesticity, M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29749149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyondermemphis/pseuds/ohyondermemphis
Summary: He thinks to himself nine times a day that he isn’t insane. He is not the root of this problem, from the way he makes tea to how he folds the linen. Such small issues, so miniscule really.So utterly, completely wrong.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 15
Kudos: 57





	Got My Teeth In You

**Author's Note:**

> This is sadguiltyugly. This is something I want to let go and hold onto forever. Please heed the warnings, as usual, my happiest of endings lies at the end of my fingers, always bitten down. Stay safe. Stay sane. 
> 
> Title taken from unicorn / angela carter 
> 
> _you think you are possessing me - but I’ve got my teeth in you._

//

He had walked with his back to the wall, eyes glancing rabbit scared between Tom and the door, the door that is ( _please, please, please)_ not locked, that he bolts through as soon as his trembling fingers turn the knob away from him. This is the Tuesday he leaves.

The hours before this are rose tinted, this last memory of Tom, kindness and smiles. They’d had breakfast in bed that morning, Tom had woken him up with toast points and black as night coffee, a little fruit, his throat was sore ( _bruised_ ). He tied the curtains back, light on crisp white linen, and spring air rushed into their large bedroom. Harry had picked up the toast delicately, he did not care to stare at the fresh Tom shaped fingerprints that wrapped around the whole of his wrist, he’d cover it with a watch ( _Tom’s three year anniversary present_ ) and some string bracelets that Teddy had given him, bright and dull little beads on a black string, he’s got a stack of them in his nightstand, easily replaced when one gets broken.

Harry lets his face relax, he lets out a breath, true smile, walls willed away bashful. He’s tired, achy and loved, and licks his lips when Tom crowds in close. 

He brushes his nose across Harry’s cheek, his temple, soft and gentle. Just like his eyes, like he’s filled with a wonder that Harry can’t comprehend just from being in his presence. Harry feels the rest of himself melt away, drowning the trepidation. 

( _This was not the first time that Tom didn’t apologize_.)

Tom rubs a warm hand over his bare thigh, careful not to press into where some of the yellow has faded back into Harry’s skin. Their sheets are always the softest cotton, always white, always clean. Harry looks into love and in love and he blinks against the morning sun. 

He blinks and realizes he’s at the office. 

His fingers ( _Have they always shook? Have they always looked so thin?_ ) pull at the band of strings. 

His wrist isn’t bruised anymore. 

He swallows at the sight, swallows down the breakneck terror and panic and agony, at the separation ( _at the joining_ ) and mangles a neutral look on his face. He looks up and realizes Hermione is in front of him. She’ll know. 

“Harry?” That tone of voice, just this shade of worried. This isn’t the first time she’s said his name then. He fumbles for his water bottle, tries not to let any spill, still has to swipe his hand across numb lips before looking up at her. “Harry, are you feeling unwell?” 

He likes Hermione. He likes her no nonsense and he likes how she always smells like gardenias, even when Marlboro reds burn from her fingers.  
  
He likes how she’s contained to his life at the office.

He’s only surface deep for anyone else.

“I’m fine, sorry, I think I’m catching something.” It’s fine. It’s fine. Remus was sick last week, Teddy the week before. It’s normal to be sick ( _It’s all in your head, sweetheart. It’s just like you to make this up, but that’s alright, I’m going to make you better)._ It’s absolutely normal. 

I’m fine. 

His mouth won’t get the words out again but he’s able to slip into something of a self deprecating smile. He runs his hand through his hair, and coughs. 

He’s got papers on the desk, files that he shuffles into some semblance of organization while Hermione looks on, her hip cocked against the door now. 

“You should probably take it easy this weekend, you’re almost working as much as me.” Her lips twist into something like his, and he hmms low in his throat, shaking his mouse to turn the monitor back on. He stares at the empty screen for a moment, a second where he collects himself, tightly together. 

I’m okay. He swallows, pushes his glasses up his nose and now, now he can look up. 

“You’ve got Umbridge this session, don’t you?” He can read the line of tension in her shoulders, could tell even if she wasn’t strapped down with an overflowing bag from the case. Her case. 

“Yes, she’s sitting first.” Harry already knew, he’d been watching the papers in the morning. They’d use her right off the bat. Tom was vicious like that. Hermione finally slides into the little straight chair that Harry usually sits at when Percy is behind the desk. 

“You know she won’t be fair, she never is.” Hermione’s eyes harden. Harry eases back, a bit. “But Bones and Scrimgeour as well, though. Bones will be - fair, that is, she won’t let her sway him.” Hermione sits as still as stone, probably reciting everything she plans to say in front of the magistrates. 

Harry doesn’t hope it will be enough, Umbridge effectively garrotes any of that. He’s done what he can, he brought Firenze to her, she’s the barrister, it’s in her hands now.

When did he stop caring? That Tuesday?

He shakes his head out of those three am thoughts, doesn’t want to get lost again. 

“How ‘bout a cuppa?” She smiles at him, coming out herself, and she runs a hand across her face, catching the edge of a nail in her teeth. 

“Yeah, yeah, thought you’d never ask.”

It’s almost too late, barely any traffic outside and even Percy’s long left for the night. Harry’s brow furrows, he’s gotta get it together, keep it together. He didn’t even hear the bell when she walked in. 

It could have been anyone. It could have been _him_. 

He slides her cup across the little table in their oft used break room, lets his steam, keeps his hands moving, wipes down the sink, countertops, his busy bee routine. 

He listens as Hermione quietly continues on with the case. Even the sharpest tones of her voice soothes the turmoil of his chaotic mind, even the low thrum of her anger is alright. It’s mild, never violent. 

His hands finally stop long enough to drink his warm tea. Tom had liked his steaming hot, two sugars, no milk. Harry could make it in his sleep. When he first set the cups out he had to stop himself from doing it. 

“Thanks, Harry. I needed to vent.” He smiles, nods, understanding. Their loneliness speaks to each other, and the buffer of their shells finds kindred spirits. Lonely together. He walks her to the door now that she’s wrapped back in her puffer, too stuffed satchel bumping harshly into her leg. 

She places a warm gloved hand on him, half way out the door, “Get some rest, Harry.” He watches her hand on his arm, crawls from the feel of it. 

The glint of his gold band catches her eyes. She smiles, a lovely sweetness from her. “I’m sure Tom is waiting up.” He swallows around the sudden choke, smiles and nods. 

//

“Harry, hello, Harry.” A pale freckled hand waves across his face, bringing him out of thoughts that definitely aren’t of long fingers and devious eyes. 

Percy, hands on his hips, makes Harry huff a laugh, finishing the last of his tea. 

“Sorry, Percy. ‘Mma million miles away today.” 

“Yeah, I noticed.” Percy, usually six foot three of stern expression, cracks a wry grin, bemused. “Have you at least managed to do a little bit of your job?” 

Harry, incredulous, flicks at Percy, who scatters away from Harry’s hand. “You’ve had me running ragged today, you arse.” He’s been to Hermione’s office twice, and then down to the Crouch’s, he must have walked ten miles today. 

“Oh, to be young and in love.” Harry rolls his eyes, his face heating up something awful but Percy is already back to his computer and Harry. 

Harry is. 

Harry is in love.

Tom’s magic, feverbright love had wrapped around him, took him in with tender eyes and hungry hands. That oh so big four letter word hasn’t dropped between them yet but Harry can feel it, unbelievably both wild and fettered, waiting to be let out, wanting so desperately to slide from one open cavern to another, one little sigh away at any given moment when he was in Tom’s arms.

//

When he leaves the first time, before that Tuesday but after that Friday, limping and keeping his ribs held, in nothing but short sleeves and bruises he has nowhere to go. The townhouse at Grimmauld Place bears both their names, as well as the bank account. Everything. 

Harry has his will to leave and the clothes on his back. 

Going to Remus and Tonk’s is not an option. ( _We’ll keep our affairs to ourselves._ ) He just needs a few days to think, a few days. 

He walks, half laughs at the looks of his poshy unknown neighbors that pass him in the street. He doesn’t think about his wallet, or his mobile, or the pictures of his parents that he left behind. 

He doesn’t think about the heart break yet to come. 

In the end, his feet take him to Aunt Petunia’s door. 

He walks, however far it is, with his hands tense at his sides, head jerking back to see, just to see if Tom’s managed to catch up, looks to see if Tom is even following him at all. 

//

Harry James Potter was born to two caring parents. He was born to light and love, under fresh air and flowers. Lily and James had only loved one person more than each other. 

They die, along with his godfather, thirteen years later. Harry doesn’t like to talk about that time. 

It’s only years later that he talks to Tom about before ( _now that he can, now that the pressure isn’t quite so heavy on his chest, now that he can breathe without breaking_ ), he likes to tell him of candy apple red hair and soft grins, strong arms.

He leaves his family home, sealed and kept away like feet lifting hugs and hair tucked behind ears.

He goes to his only Aunt in London. She lives in a two bedroom flat that’s only flaw is the ever present smell of roses. His mother had loved them. Her sister does too. 

She doesn’t talk about the husband she left in Surrey, doesn’t talk about the limp she’s had since before her divorce.

There are a lot of things unsaid in their little home. 

//

He sees them, of course he sees him, he’s meant to. Tom knows his routine, right down to the minute, knows he’ll have his monthly dinner with Petunia, last Friday of the month like he’s had in all the years before he knew the feel of Tom’s hands, either rough or gentle. 

Tom and Barty and there, snuggled in the corner between Tom and Rabastan, is Neville. Neville, sweet and innocent, he’s known him since primary. And there he is, breathless and red rose flushed from whatever Tom is whispering in his ear. 

Harry winces, only after they’ve sat down, only after Tom raises his brow at him across the room, his nonchalance more hurtful than his hits. It makes the dinner, the wine he drinks too much of, all of it bitter.

Harry’s always been friendly with his exes, up until last year had seen Cedric for a pickup game every now and then, two years before even went to Draco’s wedding, happily. 

This is killing him. He can’t look away, can’t focus, barely touches the food in front of him. The conversation is stilted, more awkward than usual. 

It’s anticlimactic when it’s over, when he still feels a physical weight on his back when he leads Petunia out of the restaurant. Tom’s eyes linger, and he wants to turn around, wants to make a scene and rage and bury his hurt underneath the blistering anger. 

Are they fucking? He worries a bitten down nail in his mouth, stares straight ahead, vaguely aware that Petunia has her sharp eyes on him. Will they fuck tonight? Have they already? 

Will Neville wake up in his bed, will Tom be as nice to him, as so charmingly lovely? 

He stumbles over the sidewalk, sinking further into himself even as he helps Petunia into her car, leans down to kiss her cheek. 

She puts a hand on his face, the right side and her mouth is pinched like she’s keeping all the things she saw and didn’t see to herself. 

“Call me when you get home.” He nods, eyes two seconds away from streaming out the tears he can barely keep a hold on. 

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” She says something else, soft and unlike her but his eyes are up and over, brow furrowed, hurt flowing like a lazy river, and all he can think, vision narrowed on the closed restaurant door, is it too late?

//

His phone flashes. He keeps it on silent, so when the text goes through he doesn’t notice it at first. He’s still breathing hard, worn out ( _and worn in, promises of keeping him still ringing in his ears_ ). Tom kisses the side of his face, his neck, one-two-three presses of warm lips and wicked tongue. 

He stops when the light blinks. One-two-three. 

“Aren’t you a popular one?” This is still new enough that Harry can feel a sliver of defensiveness. He rolls away from both the feeling and Tom and fumbles for his phone on the night table. Before he can unlock it, five long strong fingers clasp around his wrist, a loose shackle. 

“Who is it so late?” Tom’s voice is carefully calm, light as the lips that press against his neck. 

“Probably Perce, he forgets normal human hours.” Harry enters his password, is indeed not surprised to see Percy’s name and a message so long that he just glances at the ellipsis to know that it can wait until the morning. 

“You’re boss, correct?” Harry tosses his phone back on the floor among the pile of his clothes and nods, hums an affirmative and catches Tom’s downturned mouth with his own. 

Tom doesn’t say anything else, too busy stretching his jaw wide and Harry forgets by the next morning. 

//

“Your mother helped me leave him.” Petunia says to his back when she helps him take his shirt off. A sunset bruise is painted from ribs to spine, and Harry’s breath catches in his throat, is still too far away to process this much even as the tub fills, even as Petunia helps him out of the rest of his clothes.

“She stayed with me at the hospital, the whole time. Stayed with me when I lost my baby.” Her voice is as dead as Tom’s is sometimes, when sound stops and the highs and lows of their timber are the only thing that matters in this world. “Your father never said anything, just came right along with her when I left. I - I couldn’t even walk out on my own.” She pushes his hair out of his face, and helps him into the tub.

He curls up, a familiar position, even though the _throbthrob_ of pain pulses like light behind his eyes. She kneels down beside him, grunting at the ache in her hip.

Water falls down on him and he stays still while she washes his hair. 

He cries, watches the bath turn rust brown around him and listens to Petunia fill the tiny little bathroom with all the things unsaid. 

She leaves him be long enough for him to have a proper breakdown, for him to have a good look at himself. It’s not too bad, but then again it’s not ever really bad enough. Why does he keep leaving? and in the next hitch of sobs He’ll never go back, this is not love.

This is not love. No matter what Tom says. And it’s Tom’s voice and Tom’s passion in his head, chasing his thoughts around one another until it was only his voice he could hear.

He gets out of the tub, throws on clothes from highschool and slinks into the kitchen. He’d kill for Vodka but Petunia hasn’t kept hard liquor in the house for years. 

They crowd around the kitchen table, late night telly muffled from the other room. Everything looks harsher under flourescents and Harry watches the shape of Tom’s fingers haunt the skin around his arm. He rubs a thumb over it, and Petunia speaks again.

“He hasn’t hurt you enough yet, you’ll go back.” By now it’s the witching hour, as Petunia likes to call it, and there is a hard line of truth at this time of night. Petunia lights them both a cigarette, and he’s happy to have it.

She flicks her ashes in the ceramic and Harry watches the slow fall of ash on pristine white, thinks if he didn’t have all that ringing in his right ear he might even hear the soft hush of it. He’s already exhausted but there’s no chance for rest tonight until his body makes himself. His mind can’t keep quiet, can’t let go of Tom Riddle right now. 

He doesn’t say anything, just inhales another lung pocket of nicotine. He hasn’t smoked in ages. 

“It won’t be tomorrow or even next month, might not be even in the next year but he will do this again. He will. I’ve had my belly full of men like that, charming snakes - the lot of them.” She lets out a tremble of air and wraps her arms around herself, Harry steadies himself, turns to her, hawk eyes. 

“Don’t go back, little Harry-bird, but I know you will.” She sighs, comes out of herself, wipes the tear off his face with jerky fingers. “You’ve got that love still in your eyes, he hasn’t beaten it out of you yet.” She drops her cigarette in the sink. 

He watches her back, lights another. 

//

“Tom, come on, no.” Harry whines, sleepy and feet tired from being up all day. He catches Tom’s eyes in the dark, cool of his bedroom. As alluring and dangerous as cloudless moonlight, Harry feels a flush spread tip to toes. 

One wrist is already caught in a bare hand. 

“Let me, sweetheart, come on, let me make you feel good, Harry.” Harry rolls his eyes, love leaking between them, already wet between his legs from the slow slide of his man’s body on top of his. 

Tom rubs his hand down ribs ( _onetwothreefour, oh aren’t you hungry, Harry? Aren’t you starving?_ ) and pushes his thumbs in the hollow space where they meet a concave belly. 

“I’d put a baby in you if I could. Fill you up, keep you pregnant.” Keep you mine, he doesn’t say. Doesn’t need to, and oh but Harry wishes, a family, Tom and him and a baby, boy or girl, it doesn’t matter. More than one. 

He’d have all of Tom Riddle’s babies. 

//

The first time Tom hits him is on a Friday. He didn’t mean to, that’s what he’d said. He didn’t mean to. Harry breathes out, a hitch because he can’t stop crying. Stupid, that’s how he feels when Tom is so quiet at the counter. He puts both hands on either side of the sink, breathes again and places cool palm against the heat of his face.

“Harry, breathe.” Two words Tom’s repeated several times in the last few minutes, twice now that he’s helped Harry from the floor. He says breathe and he says love and he says he didn’t mean to. 

He hasn’t said, never again (and Harry will never know that Tom does promise never again - only to himself - never again in the face), hasn’t said I’m sorry. 

Harry straightens.

“I think I’m going to go back to my place tonight.” He doesn’t turn, he speaks this to the row of herbs that line Tom’s sink. He tenses ( _the first time_ ) when he feels Tom’s heat at his back. The hesitant touch of hands on his shoulders.

His face throbs.

Tom doesn’t stop him from leaving. He tell’s himself the first day that’s fine.

Keeps telling himself that for a week while he stays ( _hiding out, his love lorn brain hisses_ ) at his own forsaken flat, where he sits and looks at a phone that doesn’t ever flash Tom’s name. He mumbles around questions about his new found dejection at work, tells Remus and Tonks that he hasn’t been feeling well, promises Andromeda next month - it’s just been too hectic - learns that a black eye takes longer than a week to heal _but he’s learned concealer really is magic_ ). 

When two weeks close in, he starts to worry. He hasn’t spoken to Tom once ( _and it feels like a divorce, like a shattering of spirit)._ Is this it? Is he not going to even try now? Harry swings between bereft and anger when Tom’s name never lights up. Fine. 

Okay. 

They haven’t broken up, this isn’t even a breakup, just a break, just a calm down. He’s just not going to be the first one to give in, why should he be the first one? What’s Tom done since he left? Nothing. And that’s fine.

But, he can’t stand to think that this will be it, this wonderful, magical thing ( _and the good days are so many, and barely any bad days_ ) can be over. 

It’s not, it’s just a row, a domestic, they just need to talk, he just needs to be able to talk, both of them. This kind of thing is normal for any relationship, people get jealous all the time, people hurt each other, forgiveness is something they’ll both have to work on.

He’s going to be ok. 

He’s fine. He is **not** a victim. This is a self serving mantra that repeats on a loop when he feels the walls begin to close in, started when he first felt the shock at the sight of a bruise under his right eye.

He puts on his face, grin and humor sit tight on his skin, make him feel broken open and raw. A month in and he keeps at it, goes to work, goes to see Teddy too much, making up the time that’s his now. Takes tea with Andromeda. It’s fine. 

He’s fine.

Until he is not fine.

He’s lost almost two stones in as many months. He knows the days, could even gather the minutes and seconds of this exile. Two whole months, apart less than a fourth of the time they’d been together. A long time, too long and how can he rationalize this, when every new second hurts just as much as the last?

This never ending mourning. 

He’s taken to vodka on the weeknights, cuts it with clinking ice cubes and cuts himself off only when his face feels flushed. He chews on toast and cheese, the extent of his diet is only things liquor absorbing because he’s getting old enough now that he can feel the right throb of a newly forming ulcer. 

He switches to whiskey on the weekends, and it burns the same as Tom’s mouth once had. 

His alright act is wearing thin at work and he decides to finally use a little bit of all that holiday time. He needs to get a grip, if this is it. If this is the end. He needs to sober up and shake the ghost of Tom Riddle off himself.

First day off and he realizes the mistake he’s made. 

The first night he’s sober, is terrible, feels like he’s cut himself loose with a dull knife - is that why it feels like he’s missing a limb, aching for phantom? 

Next day brings all his jittery nerves back to light. Harry fidgets on his balcony, fingers twitching inexplicably for a cigarette, or at the very least a drink but he’s promised himself to keep liquor out of his hand and belly for the next week. 

The knock to his door is unexpected. 

He doesn’t think anything of it until it’s halfway open and Tom Riddle himself stands in his hallway. 

His face is some kind of slack jawed amazed as Tom only looks at him fondly ( _my sweet Harry_ , while he bit him so tenderly) a lovely bouquet of white tulips held between them. 

He takes them hesitantly, twisting to let Tom inside. He looks bigger than life in Harry’s eclectic apartment, Tom’s still in suit and tie, Prada draped across Harry’s couch so it lies right on top of the quilt Albus had knitted for him too many years ago. 

It’s almost worn thin and Tom schools his face at seeing it out. All those months ago, when they had tumbled into Harry’s apartment for the first time, when Tom had laid him bare open and raw and sank into every fiber of his being, the blanket had been there. The morning after, it was no where to be found.

He’d only found it weeks ago, bundled up in the back of his closet, hidden. 

He doesn’t say anything about it. Not right now. Not with Tom looking him over head to toe, eyes angled just right ( _as sharp as the jaw Harry misses so much_ ), honeyed mouth twisted like it’s been Harry keeping him away this long. 

“Sweetheart, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.” Tom slides closer, once Harry’s placed the tulips in a vase, kitchen tap filling cut crystal ( _also from Tom_ ). He leans on Harry’s countertop, arms crossed, brow pinched, so close to him now. Tom frowns at the pack of cigarettes crumpled nearby and Harry waits for him to say something. 

He doesn’t. 

“Lavender’s been on maternity leave. I’ve been at the office more.” He says quietly, looking over the top of his glasses at Tom, fingering the petals softly. 

“I’ve been worried.” He doesn’t flinch when Tom brings up all those long fingers to push his wayward hair back, and keeps still long enough for him to rub one pink blood-warm ear. His whole body keeps itself tight, held together by pure will. 

“You didn’t seem all that worried the last time I saw you.” He looks Tom straight in the eye for the first time, finds the tiniest jolt of pure pettiness when the other man’s eyes narrow. Harry steps back, away, and rubs his wet hands off on a tea towel before picking up the cigarettes. He watches Tom let out a sigh, a clenched jaw ( _was that better than a clenched fist?_ ) before he follows Harry out to the little balcony. 

“That was a mistake.” Harry takes his first lungful of nicotine for the day. He rolls his eyes away, scoffing, uncharacteristically bitter, hurt showing right through. 

“How many mistakes have you made since August?” He fails to harden his heart against the concerned look on Tom’s face. He can’t stop looking at him, even when Tom turns his head away, scrubbing one hand over his lovely face. Harry eats up his visage greedily, they haven’t been close in so, so long. He's achingly lonely, desolate where once solitude was a comfort. He feels tender, ripped open when Tom kept his distance. 

The late afternoon sun is sinking along the city, dark shadows dapple across Tom’s handsome face when he catches Harry’s eyes again. His eyes seem darker, lovelier - and they rove over Harry so intensely it’s like being caught in a trap. 

His cigarette burns, forgotten in his hand. 

“Harry. Harry, sweetheart.” Tom inches forward and Harry allows him, eyes flickering between his face and his hands. A soft heartbreak for feeling the tiniest amount of fear at being trapped between freefall and Tom. 

He swallows it down just as Tom gently places hands on him again. He fights the hard clench of forgiveness that sits right at the tip of his tongue. Tom takes his cigarette, crushes it on the railing and takes Harry’s face in his hands, and Harry fits right between them. 

“It was all just a cheap trick. I wanted - I thought you would - it doesn’t matter what I thought.” Harry looks sharply at Tom just as he shakes his head ruefully. “Harry, I was a fool. An absolute fool to think I could get you back with jealousy. A bigger fool to not come running for you as soon as you left.” There’s something desperate in his expression, something wild and hurt lurking behind the pleading calm in his eyes. The look on his face is so delicate it makes Harry’s breath catch because he recognizes it, has seen it in the mirror every time he’s managed to look. 

He breathes out a sigh, swallows around the sharp pinch in his throat, blinks past the wetness in his eyes. Tom rubs a warm, large hand across his cheek, tilting his head up. He shifts closer until they stand, without barriers, to rest forehead against forehead and Harry starts to let himself unfurl, like a flower opening up to feel the rain for the first time. 

“Harry, my darling boy.” His name, the sweetness of it long unheard from Tom’s mouth, sinks into his skin like a prayer, like a blessing. 

//

He thinks to himself nine times a day that he isn’t insane. He is not the root of this problem, from the way he makes tea to how he folds the linen. Such small issues, so miniscule really. 

So utterly, completely wrong. 

//

They move into the townhouse at Grimmauld Place on a Saturday, when they’ve both got a long weekend. Tom hires a van, and stays on his mobile most of the day when he’s not directing where and what should go. Harry throws his too long hair into a bun and starts the long process of unwrapping the breakables. 

They pick apart a roasted chicken for dinner, too tired and worked out to even make it to the bedroom on the first landing. 

Tom fucks Harry on a pallet on the floor, in front of their fireplace. Harry hasn’t had the kind of warmth and love directed at him since he was young, and he had felt such love with Tom in him and around him, with Tom’s eyes showing everything he would ever need to know.

Harry sees Tom off to work Tuesday with a keepcup full of coffee and lingering kisses across their kitchen. Even Tom can’t kiss the smile off his face. 

Of course, he’s the reason it’s there in the first place.

He takes a shower in their too big bathroom, wraps up in the towels Tom had picked out ( _I’ll make a snob out of you just yet_ ), lays on the cool white comfort of their new too big California King, his man was every inch big all over, he needed the room. 

//

“Did you lose it?” That tone. Red flag, dark and crimson, and Harry can already feel a layer of cold sweat on the back of his neck instantly. He fumbles across the bureau, tilting bottles back to look behind them. He hadn’t heard Tom come up the stairs. 

“No - Tom, no, I didn’t. I took it off, I remember. I know I did - I put it- I know I didn’t lose it.” He doesn’t panic ( _not yet, but it’s a very near thing_ ), he takes a deep breath and calms himself. He had taken the locket off, he knew better, he should have never taken the locket off but they had to go to the quick clinic ( _it’s not broken, Mr. Potter but a near thing_ (the irony is not lost on him)) and Tom didn’t want him to have to take it off there. He knows he took it off ( _one handed, tear blurred)_ and put it on this bureau. He’s so sure of it. 

“Don’t lie. Don’t be irresponsible, Harry.” Tom comes closer, helps him check over the bureau, underneath the clutter of Harry’s books and scarves, concealer and sunglasses. 

“I’m not Tom, I swear. I didn’t-“ 

“Own up to it, Harry. Christ, just say you lost it.” He steps back now that Harry’s worked up in a real panic, he put it there, hadn’t he? He can’t remember, not with absolute certainty, but he’d never lose that locket, he wouldn’t be so careless with something that important to Tom. 

“I didn’t. I know I didn’t, I know-“

“You’re lying.” Tom’s voice, dead with antipathy. He rolls his eyes away from Harry, stepping back. Harry can only watch the clench of his fists. Tom swings back around, quick and frightening. Harry flinches back, hands raised automatically to placate. 

“I’m not! I’m sorry, if I could just - just wait- I know-“

“No, Harry. You know how much that means to me and you stand there and lie to me, about something like that.” Tom is calm in a way that the sky is calm before the tumultuous storm, quiet and looming. 

“I’m not ly-“

It’s not an open handed hit. It’s a fist, right in all his softest parts. Tom doesn’t hit him in the face ( _not since the first time_ ). 

He gasps, lands somewhere on the floor and has half a second to try to cover himself when Tom’s foot connects to a rib ( _I’m sorry, I lost it, I’m sorry_ ).

They go to bed, one calmangry, the other sadangry, neither of them touching. Harry finds himself in Tom’s arms in the morning, tender touches to the bruise that blossoms around his ribs. Kissed every inch but three by five, too sore. After this worship, this love travels from Tom’s fingers to every molecule in Harry’s body as he feeds Harry breakfast in the morning. The salt from the bacon makes his bitten lip burn. 

They always kiss goodbye. 

//

For their two year anniversary ( _he doesn’t count those terrible two months that fell somewhere between_ ) Tom takes him to a little island that skirts the coast of the Mediterranean. It’s nothing but sun and sand for days and days. 

“You look like a child, sweetheart. Not a care in the world.” Tom pulls him closer by the hips, sucks a smart bruise around his throat. Harry moans, clutching at Tom like a lost boat out to sea. “It looks good on you.” A mega watt smile directed solely at Tom Marvolo, Harry leans up on tiptoes to chase a mouth that tastes like peaches. 

There’s no such thing as the ugliness of space between their constant touching, their passionate loving. Harry is usually worn out or giddy with bliss. He likes both of them. Tom lifts him up like he weighs nothing, balances him on a big, strong lap, hand feeds him just so he can have his fingers in his mouth. 

He’s sunkissed when they come home. 

//

Tom’s having a dinner party ( _again_ ) and Harry had looked at him, puppy dog eyes and all until he relented and now Harry breathes fresh, cold night air and the party ( _and Tom_ ) still go on behind the open balcony doors, he can see the street below Grimmauld lined with cars. Tom knew a lot of people.

His hand twitches for a cigarette but he’s managed ( _so far_ ) to kick the habit again. Tom was right, it was so unhealthy, so detrimental to his teeth and his lungs, and Harry felt lucky, so fortunate to finally have someone looking so diligently after him. 

He shakes in the cold, feeling some kind of way in the cool air. 

“Oh, I didn’t think anyone was out here.” Bellatrix Lestrange peaks her head from the clink and mingle of the party and Harry flashes her a grin. 

“You’re fine, enough room.” She nods, dark ruby lips already smiling at him. She pulls out a little purse, fishes out a slim pack of cigarettes and immediately offers him one. 

“No, thank you, I’ve just quit.” He looks longingly at her offering one last time before bracing himself against the railing again. 

“Tom hates a smoker, always trying to get me to quit.” She rolls her eyes, looking at him like they’re sharing secrets, it sort of feels like it. 

“Yes-yes, he’s quite put out with it.” A chagrined grin, and she nods. 

“Can’t stop the habit, unfortunately. As you can tell.”

“You’ve known Tom a good while, then?” His hands are starting to turn cold but he’s interested in this dark haired woman, she looks the same age as Tom, the same proud stance, the same self assured manner that Tom meets everything with. 

“Ages, I shouldn’t really be letting you behind the curtain, but since school.” She takes a seat on their bench, smoking her cigarette. Harry holds his breath. 

“Wow. That long?” 

“We’re practically ancient, darling.” She smirks at him, eyebrow raised. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -“

“It’s absolutely alright, Harry isn’t it?” Her eyes are big and dark in the twilight and Harry nods. She takes another draw from her cigarette, flicking the ashes into the wind. 

“Yes, I’m-“

“Tom speaks very fondly of you. And Tom never speaks fondly of anyone.” She flicks her cigarette across the way and Harry watches the ember fade out, his own face warm. 

“Thank you.”

“Are you still in school?” She stands, takes his arm, and he hesitates for only a moment before letting her lead him back into the party. He catches eyes with Tom over the din of conversation and soft music. Smiles. 

“I’m finishing up the year after next. I’m working at The Phoenix firm.” For now, remains unsaid. 

Bellatrix takes a flute of champagne, hands Harry one even though Tom asked him to not to indulge, he didn’t want him too out of it tonight and that was a good enough reason for Harry. 

He doesn’t drink from it. 

“Law?” 

“No, actually, social work.” Bellatrix lets out a bark of laughter. 

“My God, what do you see in Tom then?”

“We get on.” Harry’s replies laconic, setting down his glass on a nearby end table. 

“I’m sure. Tom’s always been that way, you must know. He can charm the pants off anyone, even little soon-to-be social workers like yourself.” He swallows around those words, gives a tight lipped smile. 

“Yes, yes he’s quite capable of that.” Tom’s dark eyes on him and he’d give anything to be out of here, alone with Tom. Bellatrix shows a row of white teeth, vulture eyes when she looks Harry up and down. 

“I’m sure, darling.” He fakes a grin, nods, then goes to settle under Tom’s shadow.

They have more of these dinner parties at Grimmauld than they ever had at Tom’s flat. Another ( _again_ ) not even a month later and this one feels like an ordeal. Tom’s exes are teaming and Harry learns that Tom likes to keep friendly with them. 

He slaps on a toothpaste smile, hides the bruises around his collar with a turtleneck and readies for an agonizing evening. 

“Zacharius, wonderful to see you. This is Harry.” Tom doesn’t use the word boyfriend, ever, but Harry flushes at the warmth and propriety in his voice. Like anything as childlike as boyfriend could ever hold a candle to what they have.

Zacharius’ smile is strained but Harry shakes his hand nevertheless. 

He finds out later, while Tom fulfills his hosting by being the focal point of all attention, that Zacharius is an ex. That’s the second he’s met so far tonight, along with the elusive ( _and devastatingly gorgeous_ ) Ginny Weasley ( _he’s going to strangle Percy with his bare hands_ ). 

And of course they get along like a house on fire, so much so that they arrange to meet the next day for coffee. Ginny has to see Percy before she leaves the motherland again anyway. 

He’s surprisingly early to their little tête-à-tête ( _when Tom asks him how he enjoyed the party Harry side eyes him, ridiculous and Tom had muttered brat between hot kisses from head to toes, and Harry had not said one more word about it)_. Ginny’s already at a small table outside, short red hair shining like copper. She grins when she sees Harry, hugs him even though the only thing they have in common is that the same man has been inside them. 

They chat, and Harry knows he’s got to ask her. Knows in his bones that he has to, he can’t be the only one. It’s just a temper thing. 

Everyone’s got issues, Harry knows he has a ton himself. It’s just a thing, it happens. Sometimes. 

“How’s Tom, then? He looked positively giddy showing you about, honestly, I never thought he had it in him to ever be happy. You know how serious he is.” She smiles conspiratorially towards him, and he manages to lift one side of his mouth. His hands fidget with his coffee cup. 

“Yeah, yeah. I like to think I make him happy, you know - I mean, of course, you know how he is.”

“Ah, he’s always been quite reserved, possibly the most British man I’ve ever met.” She shakes her head, eyes crinkling.

“Yes.” He takes a breathe, swallows his nerves. “Sometimes, sometimes I don’t know if I do make him happy.”

“Oh Harry, no.” She doesn’t hesitate to reach across the table, warm hand on his, earnest eyes. “I know Zach was giving you nine types of hell but I’ve never known Tom to ever act as he does now, I’ve certainly never known him to dote on someone.”

“Sometimes, I just - I know I make him angry, sometimes he just …” She cocks her head, takes her hand back. Harry feels immediately like he’s said the wrong thing. 

“I’m sorry? I’ve just, he’s always been just - quiet. I’ve never even heard him shout before! He would just shut down whenever we would quarrel, which wasn’t often, Tom always seemed to keep his partners at arms length, you know. He was always - just, oh you know, casually with someone.” She half laughs, gives him another look before gripping his hand again. 

“I’m glad to see him finally make an effort, to put himself out there. I feel like you’re good for him, Harry. He needs someone like you, needs to let himself need.”

He tries to smile but he can’t even do that right. 

//

Years down the line and he still can’t shake that conversation out of his head. 

Was there something wrong with him? To make Tom act like this? Why? What was Harry made up of that twisted Tom around so?

Why couldn’t he fix himself? 

He never thought about fixing Tom. What was there to fix? Tom was heartbreakingly funny, intelligent, caring - a million and one different things to Harry and nine times out of ten they were all good. 

He’d never hit anyone before Harry, never felt the way he did before Harry. 

And, oh, how it crushed him to fail Tom time and time again. 

//

“Do you have any idea how much I adore you?” Tom says from somewhere down and around and below him. Harry rolls his eyes, clenches his thighs around Tom’s shoulders while one hand runs through soft, soft hair. Tom turns his head, kisses his fingertips, his wrist. 

“Oh, I’ve got an idea.” Tom laughs, low and warm, and Harry has fire in his belly, heat on his face.

“Oh I don’t think you do, sweetheart. Not. One. Little. Inkling.” He sucks the words into Harry’s thighs and he feels more than in that moment, feels a little daring, a little reckless, a lot in love.

“Tell me then.” He runs a hand through Tom’s hair again, trails along his face, lets him kiss the tips of his fingers.

“You are perfect, sweetheart. Made just for me.” He swallows Harry down to the root and Harry moans, arches his back, makes the most needy sounds in his life.

\\\

When he left that Tuesday, there was no Petunia to go to anymore. He had buried her, Tom by his side, the autumn before. He had placed a rose on the coffin of the woman who had told him to leave the man that had wrapped him in his arms not five hours earlier and let him bawl like a baby. 

He still feels a sliver of guilt about that. 

But he didn’t realize then, how much he would need her once he leaves again. He stays at the office at first, unnoticed as he often is now, and after getting his check ( _there’s been a bank mixup, I can change it back, right?)_ he rents a weekly at a hotel nearby. 

He aches for Grimmauld place. 

He keeps his head downand stays away from the bottle this time. Cigarettes too. He doesn’t tell anyone that he isn’t going home every night. No one asks anyway. 

He sits on his bed at the hotel he pays a weekly fee at, in the dark, alone and sometimes angry, a lot of the time sad. He fingers the locket around his throat. 

It had been in Tom’s office. Between fountain pens and paperclips. Untouched as the day Harry had taken it off one handed. 

The why of it all haunts him. And he’s exactly that, a ghost, a lost cause. Because even though he’s found it, it doesn’t matter. Put it back around his neck, like a chain, like a red string, like the gold band he couldn’t ever imagine taking off. 

This time his phone flashes again. 

Tom’s not name, _Love_ , over and over. The only difference from the last time, all those years and months ago. 

Harry’s arm won’t ever straighten back out. His back aches, his kidneys even worse, he jumps at sudden movements. He runs a hand over his face, quiet now, Tom can’t leave anymore voicemails than he already has. 

They play like a lullaby when Harry closes his eyes. 

He gets up the next day, calls in ( _not the first time, maybe the last_ ), thoughtless and thoughtful, leaves all his stuff (toiletries, cheap semi casual uniform that he wears to work each day) and knows. 

He leaves the keys at the desk, devastation and excitement swirling, always twisting, his thoughts can never catch their own tail. 

He walks, walks, walks all the way to Grimmauld place, the home he’s carved out with love and blood. 

Tom answers the door before he can knock, bated breath, and Harry stifles a sob, gets pulled in, tight ( _too tight and not ever tight enough)_ and makes his own never again promise. 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I live for comments, discussions. I’m going to rephrase what I had - in fiction, is the bad guy winning a good thing, do we want them to stay? 
> 
> Love to hear from you guys. 
> 
> ohyondermemphis @ tumblr


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